Dice Play God With The Universe

Dice are the necessary evil of role-playing games. Sure, there are some role-playing games that have taken a swing at dice free mechanics, but that removes the element of chance that dice infuse into the resolution of in-game actions. As a consequence, players and GMs invest much significance into how dice are handled. These habits can manifest in such mild forms as ‘dice etiquette,’ to tongue in cheek statements about the ‘proper’ use of dice.

Darths & Droids on the thrill of dice

More commonly, players and GMs engage in rituals and superstitions that make dice handling a form of Kabbalism. Among such players, understanding the capricious ways of dice can only be derived from acknowledging that they possess a mystical or divine essence. Thus, mastery and control over the dice can only occur in the possession of transcendent knowledge.

Image captured from Penny Arcade: The Series. Used without permission.

Of course, we live in enlightened times, and our knowledge and mastery of the material world is marked not by alchemical pseudo-science gibberish but empiricism and statistics!

What that means is that newcomers to the world of dice-based gaming wield greater mastery over polyhedral ballistics than their grognardian forebears. Now I’m not saying that dice no longer hold secrets. They are, however, less mysterious than they used to be much like matters of physics, chemistry and the human body.

However, like any modern scholastic field, diceology is splintered across different schools of thought. Some subscribe to the mathematical or statistical school of thought, in which dice rolls can be determined by observing laws of probability. Others view dice as sentient entities, which despite not being recognized by the Catholic Church as having souls, can be coerced through principles of behavioral psychology.

Still from Push (2009). Captured and used without permission.

Paul Hynes of Daddy Dungeon Master subscribes to the latter principle. Many years ago, he exercised capital punishment as a means of coercing his dice to roll better. Every bad roll sent his dice into a wood stove where they would experience a hot and fiery death.”This is one of the darker moments of my relationship with dice, when I believed they could be swayed by fear,” Paul writes. “I now know that your relationship with dice is not that of master and slave, but of equals.”

Hynes uses principles of operant conditioning to train his dice, but these days he has adopted the role of a nurturing parent. He calls a time out for dice that perform poorly and reinforces good rolls with continued use at the table. He also plays nurturing parent by recognizing that dice that roll a certain way may do better in specific gaming contexts such as old-school saving throws. Still, Paul does not suffer a foolish die gladly, and does recommend some benign forms of punishment for dice that continue to rebel over some imperceptible slight.

Nonetheless, diceology has come a long way. Today, we use scientific principles of observation and experimentation to ground our knowledge. I think the future will be in engineering. Future dice rolls will be made by shooting raw energy across ‘probability superconductors’ made of frictionless surfaces. Others will make use of matter compression to compact probability into supertensile solids.

Until then, we have a lot to learn about diceology before we can start sending them into space and making the first crit on the moon.

Comments

A member in my group – I kid you not – throws away her entire set of dice after each natural 20 is rolled. She always has five or six sets with her on any given night, and i’ve seen her go through all of them. Yes, she makes the guy at the gaming store very happy… from buying dice.

Considering that we have to place special orders online to get our dice, tell her to move to the Philippines. Her habits will ensure that local hobby shops profit from polyhedral dice and we can benefit from not having to order online anymore.

Or, tell her to just order online. You can buy bags of dice by the pound on Amazon.com for a very reasonable price.

She says she does it because she thinks each set is good for one “gift from the gaming gods.” She has money to burn, so she throws away the entire set. When I first joined the group, I was told, “whatever you do, don’t insult her or ask for her dice.” I never have, nor does anyone else… she buys much of the gaming supplies for the group so we all know better!

In the end, I’m sure she doesn’t really believe all that about the gaming gods, it’s more of a way to make gaming fun for everyone.

My father, I shit you not, has more than 500 6-siders, for when we play GURPS.
I myself own at least 40 20-siders, at least 100 6-and about 20-30 each of 8’s, 10’s, and 12’s
I only own 3 4-siders however… And Oh, how I loath those dice…

My concept is that dice are like Pokemon. Each die has a master. My father’s 20-sider is red. Mine is green. My 10 is dark blue. 12 is black. And my eight is either the green one, or the yellow one. Depending on which one like’s me better at the time. :3 When it comes to six siders, I use 2 of Dad’s black one, and a white one from an old monopoly game.😛 For my large greatsword.😛
So… Yeah.
lol